Day 88: Farmer

Country Dinner

• Scotch on the rocks
• Popcorn
• Barbecue ribs, steak, chicken, 
• Corn on the cob, mash potato, Cesar salad,
• Apple pie

As you can see we were invited to a barbecue dinner in the French countryside today. Our hosts (R & F) are an American-Canadian family whom Fianna and I are lucky to count as friends.  It was a pleasant relaxed evening with free flowing food, alcohol and conversation.' The cottage is an hour and a half away from Paris in a rural farming area.  The village is composed of a few households of mainly retired people who's main activity use to be farming. R was telling me that the retired farmers had very low incomes (often less than 800€) which he felt was unfair after a life of hard work in the fields. Especially considering his own expected pension which as an ex-oecd official should be quite comfortable. We did not come up with an immediate solution probably due to running out of alcoholic lubricant. However, I feel this is probably another of these redistribution issues.  Why should the state give pensions on the basis of your previous earnings? Wouldn't it be better and fairer to guarantee an equal pension to all on the basis of a reasonable amount collected? People wanting a bigger amount would then have to make a conscious choice of saving more on their own rather than through the state.  I think that would probably allow a basic pension closer to 2,000€ which seems reasonable.

I could write more on this but I'm typing in bed on my tablet next to my sleeping wife, so time to switch off. sorry for any typos, i'm not great at writing on tablets.